CHAPTER SIX (Continued...)
I. The Secondary Elaboration
We will at last turn our attention to the fourth of the
factors participating in dream-formation.
If we continue our investigation of the dream-content
on the lines already laid down- that is, by examining the origin in the
dream-thoughts of conspicuous occurrences- we come upon elements that can
be explained only by making an entirely new assumption. I have in mind
cases where one manifests astonishment, anger, or resistance in a dream,
and that, too, in respect of part of the dream-content itself. Most of
these impulses of criticism in dreams are not directed against the
dream-content, but prove to be part of the dream-material, taken over and
fittingly applied, as I have already shown by suitable examples. There
are, however, criticisms of this sort which are not so derived: their
correlatives cannot be found in the dream-material. What, for instance, is
meant by the criticism not infrequent in dreams: "After all, it's only a
dream"? This is a genuine criticism of the dream, such as I might make if
I were awake, Not infrequently it is only the prelude to waking; even
oftener it is preceded by a painful feeling, which subsides when the
actuality of the dream- state has been affirmed. The thought: "After all,
it's only a dream" in the dream itself has the same intention as it has on
the stage on the lips of Offenbach's Belle Helene; it seeks to minimize
what has just been experienced, and to secure indulgence for what is to
follow. It serves to lull to sleep a certain mental agency which at the
given moment has every occasion to rouse itself and forbid the
continuation of the dream, or the scene. But it is more convenient to go
on sleeping and to tolerate the dream, "because, after all, it's only a
dream." I imagine that the disparaging criticism: "After all, it's only a
dream," appears in the dream at the moment when the censorship. which is
never quite asleep, feels that it has been surprised by the already
admitted dream. It is too late to suppress the dream, and the agency
therefore meets with this remark the anxiety or painful emotion which
rises into the dream. It is an expression of the esprit d'escalier on the
part of the psychic censorship.
In this example we have incontestable proof that
everything which the dream contains does not come from the dream-thoughts,
but that a psychic function, which cannot be differentiated from our
waking thoughts, may make contributions to the dream-content. The question
arises, does this occur only in exceptional cases, or does the psychic
agency, which is otherwise active only as the censorship, play a constant
part in dream-formation?
One must decide unhesitatingly for the latter view. It
is indisputable that the censoring agency, whose influence we have so far
recognized only in the restrictions of and omissions in the dream-content,
is likewise responsible for interpolations in and amplifications of this
content. Often these interpolations are readily recognized; they are
introduced with hesitation, prefaced by an "as if"; they have no special
vitality of their own, and are constantly inserted at points where they
may serve to connect two portions of the dream-content or create a
continuity between two sections of the dream. They manifest less ability
to adhere in the memory than do the genuine products of the
dream-material; if the dream is forgotten, they are forgotten first, and I
strongly suspect that our frequent complaint that although we have dreamed
so much we have forgotten most of the dream, and have remembered only
fragments, is explained by the immediate falling away of just these
cementing thoughts. In a complete analysis, these interpolations are often
betrayed by the fact that no material is to be found for them in the
dream- thoughts. But after careful examination I must describe this case
as the less usual one; in most cases the interpolated thoughts can be
traced to material in the dream-thoughts which can claim a place in the
dream neither by its own merits nor by way of over- determination. Only in
the most extreme cases does the psychic function in dream-formation which
we are now considering rise to original creation; whenever possible it
makes use of anything appropriate that it can find in the dream-material.
What distinguishes this part of the dream-work, and
also betrays it, is its tendency. This function proceeds in a manner which
the poet maliciously attributes to the philosopher: with its rags and
tatters it stops up the breaches in the structure of the dream. The result
of its efforts is that the dream loses the appearance of absurdity and
incoherence, and approaches the pattern of an intelligible experience. But
the effort is not always crowned with complete success. Thus, dreams occur
which may, upon superficial examination, seem faultlessly logical and
correct; they start from a possible situation, continue it by means of
consistent changes, and bring it- although this is rare- to a not
unnatural conclusion. These dreams have been subjected to the most
searching elaboration by a psychic function similar to our waking thought;
they seem to have a meaning, but this meaning is very far removed from the
real meaning of the dream. If we analyze them, we are convinced that the
secondary elaboration has handled the material with the greatest freedom,
and has retained as little as possible of its proper relations. These are
the dreams which have, so to speak, already been once interpreted before
we subject them to waking interpretation. In other dreams this tendencious
elaboration has succeeded only up to a point; up to this point consistency
seems to prevail, but then the dream becomes nonsensical or confused; but
perhaps before it concludes it may once more rise to a semblance of
rationality In yet other dreams the elaboration has failed completely; we
find ourselves helpless, confronted with a senseless mass of fragmentary
contents.
I do not wish to deny to this fourth dream-forming
power, which will soon become familiar to us- it is in reality the only
one of the four dream-creating factors which is familiar to us in other
connections- I do not wish to deny to this fourth factor the faculty of
creatively making new contributions to our dreams. But its influence is
certainly exerted, like that of the other factors, mainly in the
preference and selection of psychic material already formed in the
dream-thoughts. Now there is a case where it is to a great extent spared
the work of building, as it were, a facade to the dream by the fact that
such a structure, only waiting to be used, already exists in the material
of the dream-thoughts. I am accustomed to describe the element of the
dream-thoughts which I have in mind as phantasy; I shall perhaps avoid
misunderstanding if I at once point to the day-dream as an analogy in
waking life. * The part played by this element in our psychic life has not
yet been fully recognized and revealed by psychiatrists; though M.
Benedikt has, it seems to me, made a highly promising beginning. Yet the
significance of the day-dream has not escaped the unerring insight of the
poets; we are all familiar with the description of the day-dreams of one
of his subordinate characters which Alphonse Daudet has given us in his
Nabab. The study of the psychoneuroses discloses the astonishing fact that
these phantasies or day-dreams are the immediate predecessors of symptoms
of hysteria- at least, of a great many of them; for hysterical symptoms
are dependent not upon actual memories, but upon the phantasies built up
on a basis of memories. The frequent occurrence of conscious
day-phantasies brings these formations to our ken; but while some of these
phantasies are conscious, there is a super-abundance of unconscious
phantasies, which must perforce remain unconscious on account of their
content and their origin in repressed material. A more thorough
examination of the character of these day- phantasies shows with what good
reason the same name has been given to these formations as to the products
of nocturnal thought- dreams. They have essential features in common with
nocturnal dreams; indeed, the investigation of day-dreams might really
have afforded the shortest and best approach to the understanding of
nocturnal dreams.
* Reve, petit roman = day-dream, story.
Like dreams, they are wish-fulfillments; like dreams,
they are largely based upon the impressions of childish experiences; like
dreams, they obtain a certain indulgence from the censorship in respect of
their creations. If we trace their formation, we become aware how the
wish-motive which has been operative in their production has taken the
material of which they are built, mixed it together, rearranged it, and
fitted it together into a new whole. They bear very much the same relation
to the childish memories to which they refer as many of the baroque
palaces of Rome bear to the ancient ruins, whose hewn stones and columns
have furnished the material for the structures built in the modern style.
In the secondary elaboration of the dream-content which
we have ascribed to our fourth dream-forming factor, we find once more the
very same activity which is allowed to manifest itself, uninhibited by
other influences, in the creation of day-dreams. We may say, without
further preliminaries, that this fourth factor of ours seeks to construct
something like a day-dream from the material which offers itself. But
where such a day-dream has already been constructed in the context of the
dream-thoughts, this factor of the dream-work will prefer to take
possession of it, and contrive that it gets into the dream-content. There
are dreams that consist merely of the repetition of a day-phantasy, which
has perhaps remained unconscious- as, for instance, the boy's dream that
he is riding in a war-chariot with the heroes of the Trojan war. In my
Autodidasker dream the second part of the dream at least is the faithful
repetition of a day-phantasy- harmless in itself- of my dealings with
Professor N. The fact that the exciting phantasy forms only a part of the
dream, or that only a part of it finds its way into the dream-content, is
due to the complexity of the conditions which the dream must satisfy at
its genesis. On the whole, the phantasy is treated like any other
component of the latent material; but it is often still recognizable as a
whole in the dream. In my dreams there are often parts which are brought
into prominence by their producing a different impression from that
produced by the other parts. They seem to me to be in a state of flux, to
be more coherent and at the same time more transient than other portions
of the same dream. I know that these are unconscious phantasies which find
their way into the context of the dream, but I have never yet succeeded in
registering such a phantasy. For the rest, these phantasies, like all the
other component parts of the dream- thoughts, are jumbled together,
condensed, superimposed, and so on; but we find all the transitional
stages, from the case in which they may constitute the dream-content, or
at least the dream-facade, unaltered, to the most contrary case, in which
they are represented in the dream-content by only one of their elements,
or by a remote allusion to such an element. The fate of the phantasies in
the dream-thoughts is obviously determined by the advantages they can
offer as against the claims of the censorship and the pressure of
condensation.
In my choice of examples for dream-interpretation I
have, as far as possible, avoided those dreams in which unconscious
phantasies play a considerable part, because the introduction of this
psychic element would have necessitated an extensive discussion of the
psychology of unconscious thought. But even in this connection I cannot
entirely avoid the phantasy, because it often finds its way into the dream
complete, and still more often perceptibly glimmers through it. I might
mention yet one more dream, which seems to be composed of two distinct and
opposed phantasies, overlapping here and there, of which the first is
superficial, while the second becomes, as it were, the interpretation of
the first. *
* I have analyzed an excellent example of a dream of
this kind, having its origin in the stratification of several phantasies,
in the Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (Collected Papers,
vol. III). I undervalued the significance of such phantasies for
dream-formation as long as I was working principally on my own dreams,
which were rarely based upon day- dreams but most frequently upon
discussions and mental conflicts. With other persons it is often much
easier to prove the complete analogy between the nocturnal dream and the
day-dream. In hysterical patients an attack may often be replaced by a
dream; it is then obvious that the day-dream phantasy is the first step
for both these psychic formations.
The dream- it is the only one of which I possess no
careful notes- is roughly to this effect: The dreamer- a young unmarried
man- is sitting in his favorite inn, which is seen correctly; several
persons come to fetch him, among them someone who wants to arrest him. He
says to his table companions, "I will pay later, I am coming back." But
they cry, smiling scornfully: "We know all about that; that's what
everybody says." One guest calls after him: "There goes another one." He
is then led to a small place where he finds a woman with a child in her
arms. One of his escorts says: "This is Herr Muller." A commissioner or
some other official is running through a bundle of tickets or papers,
repeating Muller, Muller, Muller. At last the commissioner asks him a
question, which he answers with a "Yes." He then takes a look at the
woman, and notices that she has grown a large beard.
The two component parts are here easily separable. What
is superficial is the phantasy of being arrested; this seems to be newly
created by the dream-work. But behind it the phantasy of marriage is
visible, and this material, on the other hand, has been slightly modified
by the dream-work, and the features which may be common to the two
phantasies appear with special distinctness, as in Galton's composite
photographs. The promise of the young man, who is at present a bachelor,
to return to his place at his accustomed table- the skepticism of his
drinking companions, made wise by their many experiences- their calling
after him: "There goes (marries) another one"- are all features easily
susceptible of the other interpretation, as is the affirmative answer
given to the official. Running through a bundle of papers and repeating
the same name corresponds to a subordinate but easily recognized feature
of the marriage ceremony- the reading aloud of the congratulatory
telegrams which have arrived at irregular intervals, and which, of course,
are all addressed to the same name. In the personal appearance of the
bride in this dream the marriage phantasy has even got the better of the
arrest phantasy which screens it. The fact that this bride finally wears a
beard I can explain from information received- I had no opportunity of
making an analysis. The dreamer had, on the previous day, been crossing
the street with a friend who was just as hostile to marriage as himself,
and had called his friend's attention to a beautiful brunette who was
coming towards them. The friend had remarked: "Yes, if only these women
wouldn't get beards as they grow older, like their fathers."
Of course, even in this dream there is no lack of
elements with which the dream-distortion has done deep work. Thus, the
speech, "I will pay later," may have reference to the behaviour feared on
the part of the father-in-law in the matter of a dowry. Obviously all
sorts of misgivings are preventing the dreamer from surrendering himself
with pleasure to the phantasy of marriage. One of these misgivings- at
with marriage he might lose his freedom- has embodied itself in the
transformation of a scene of arrest.
If we once more return to the thesis that the
dream-work prefers to make use of a ready-made phantasy, instead of first
creating one from the material of the dream-thoughts, we shall perhaps be
able to solve one of the most interesting problems of the dream. I have
related the dream of Maury, who is struck on the back of the neck by a
small board, and wakes after a long dream- a complete romance of the
period of the French Revolution. Since the dream is produced in a coherent
form, and completely fits the explanation of the waking stimulus, of whose
occurrence the sleeper could have had no forboding, only one assumption
seems possible, namely, that the whole richly elaborated dream must have
been composed and dreamed in the short interval of time between the
falling of the board on cervical vertebrae and the waking induced by the
blow. We should not venture to ascribe such rapidity to the mental
operations of the waking state, so that we have to admit that the
dream-work has the privilege of a remarkable acceleration of its issue.
To this conclusion, which rapidly became popular, more
recent authors (Le Lorrain, Egger, and others) have opposed emphatic
objections; some of them doubt the correctness of Maury's record of the
dream, some seek to show that the rapidity of our mental operations in
waking life is by no means inferior to that which we can, without
reservation, ascribe to the mental operations in dreams. The discussion
raises fundamental questions, which I do not think are at all near
solution. But I must confess that Egger's objections, for example, to
Maury's dream of the guillotine, do not impress me as convincing. I would
suggest the following explanation of this dream: Is it so very improbable
that Maury's dream may have represented a phantasy which had been
preserved for years in his memory, in a completed state, and which was
awakened- I should like to say, alluded to- at the moment when he became
aware of the waking stimulus? The whole difficulty of composing so long a
story, with all its details, in the exceedingly short space of time which
is here at the dreamer's disposal then disappears; the story was already
composed. If the board had struck Maury's neck when he was awake, there
would perhaps have been time for the thought: "Why, that's just like being
guillotined." But as he is struck by the board while asleep, the
dream-work quickly utilizes the incoming stimulus for the construction of
a wish-fulfillment, as if it thought (this is to be taken quite
figuratively): "Here is a good opportunity to realize the wish-phantasy
which I formed at such and such a time while I was reading." It seems to
me undeniable that this dream-romance is just such a one as a young man is
wont to construct under the influence of exciting impressions. Who has not
been fascinated- above all, a Frenchman and a student of the history of
civilization- by descriptions of the Reign of Terror, in which the
aristocracy, men and women, the flower of the nation, showed that it was
possible to die with a light heart, and preserved their ready wit and the
refinement of their manners up to the moment of the last fateful summons?
How tempting to fancy oneself in the midst of all this, as one of these
young men who take leave of their ladies with a kiss of the hand, and
fearlessly ascend the scaffold! Or perhaps ambition was the ruling motive
of the phantasy- the ambition to put oneself in the place of one of those
powerful personalities who, by their sheer force of intellect and their
fiery eloquence, ruled the city in which the heart of mankind was then
beating so convulsively; who were impelled by their convictions to send
thousands of human beings to their death, and were paving the way for the
transformation of Europe; who, in the meantime, were not sure of their own
heads, and might one day lay them under the knife of the guillotine,
perhaps in the role of a Girondist or the hero Danton? The detail
preserved in the memory of the dream, accompanied by an enormous crowd,
seems to show that Maury's phantasy was an ambitious one of just this
character.
But the phantasy prepared so long ago need not be
experienced again in sleep; it is enough that it should be, so to speak,
"touched off." What I mean is this: If a few notes are struck, and someone
says, as in Don Juan: "That is from The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart,"
memories suddenly surge up within me, none of which I can recall to
consciousness a moment later. The phrase serves as a point of irruption
from which a complete whole is simultaneously put into a condition of
stimulation. It may well be the same in unconscious thinking. Through the
waking stimulus the psychic station is excited which gives access to the
whole guillotine phantasy. This phantasy, however, is not run through in
sleep, but only in the memory of the awakened sleeper. Upon waking, the
sleeper remembers in detail the phantasy which was transferred as a whole
into the dream. At the same time, he has no means of assuring himself that
he is really remembering something which was dreamed. The same
explanation- namely, that one is dealing with finished phantasies which
have been evoked as wholes by the waking stimulus- may be applied to other
dreams which are adapted to the waking stimulus- for example, to
Napoleon's dream of a battle before the explosion of a bomb. Among the
dreams collected by Justine Tobowolska in her dissertation on the apparent
duration of time in dreams, * I think the most corroborative is that
related by Macario (1857) as having been dreamed by a playwright, Casimir
Bonjour. Bonjour intended one evening to witness the first performance of
one of his own plays, but he was so tired that he dozed off in his chair
behind the scenes just as the curtain was rising. In his sleep he went
through all the five acts of his play, and observed all the various signs
of emotion which were manifested by the audience during each individual
scene. At the close of the performance, to his great satisfaction, he
heard his name called out amidst the most lively manifestations of
applause. Suddenly he woke. He could hardly believe his eyes or his ears;
the performance had not gone beyond the first lines of the first scene; he
could not have been asleep for more than two minutes. As for the dream,
the running through the five acts of the play and the observing the
attitude of the public towards each individual scene need not, we may
venture to assert, have been something new, produced while the dreamer was
asleep; it may have been a repetition of an already completed work of the
phantasy. Tobowolska and other authors have emphasized a common
characteristic of dreams that show an accelerated flow of ideas: namely,
that they seem to be especially coherent, and not at all like other
dreams, and that the dreamer's memory of them is summary rather than
detailed. But these are precisely the characteristics which would
necessarily be exhibited by ready-made phantasies touched off by the
dream- work- a conclusion which is not, of course, drawn by these authors.
I do not mean to assert that all dreams due to a waking stimulus admit of
this explanation, or that the problem of the accelerated flux of ideas in
dreams is entirely disposed of in this manner.
* Justine Tobowolska, Etude sur les illusions de temps
dans les reves du sommeil normal (1900) p. 53.
And here we are forced to consider the relation of this
secondary elaboration of the dream-content to the other factors of the
dream-work. May not the procedure perhaps be as follows? The dream-forming
factors, the efforts at condensation, the necessity of evading the
censorship, and the regard for representability by the psychic means of
the dream first of all create from the dream- material a provisional
dream-content, which is subsequently modified until it satisfies as far as
possible the exactions of a secondary agency. No, this is hardly probable.
We must rather assume that the requirements of this agency constitute from
the very first one of the conditions which the dream must satisfy, and
that this condition, as well as the conditions of condensation, the
opposing censorship, and representability, simultaneously influence, in an
inductive and selective manner, the whole mass of material in the
dream-thoughts. But of the four conditions necessary for dream-formation,
the last recognized is that whose exactions appear to be least binding
upon the dream. The following consideration makes it seem very probable
that this psychic function, which undertakes the so-called secondary
elaboration of the dream-content, is identical with the work of our waking
thought: Our waking (preconscious) thought behaves towards any given
perceptual material precisely as the function in question behaves towards
the dream-content. It is natural to our waking thought to create order in
such material, to construct relations, and to subject it to the
requirements of an intelligible coherence. Indeed, we go rather too far in
this respect; the tricks of conjurers befool us by taking advantage of
this intellectual habit of ours. In the effort to combine in an
intelligible manner the sensory impressions which present themselves we
often commit the most curious mistakes, and even distort the truth of the
material before us. The proofs of this fact are so familiar that we need
not give them further consideration here. We overlook errors which make
nonsense of a printed page because we imagine the proper words. The editor
of a widely read French journal is said to have made a bet that he could
print the words from in front or from behind in every sentence of a long
article without any of his readers noticing it. He won his bet. Years ago
I came across a comical example of false association in a newspaper. After
the session of the French Chamber in which Dupuy quelled the panic, caused
by the explosion of a bomb thrown by an anarchist, with the courageous
words, "La seance continue," * the visitors in the gallery were asked to
testify as to their impressions of the outrage. Among them were two
provincials. One of these said that immediately after the end of a speech
he had heard a detonation, but that he had thought that it was the
parliamentary custom to fire a shot whenever a speaker had finished. The
other, who had apparently already listened to several speakers, had got
hold of the same idea, but with this variation, that he supposed the
shooting to be a sign of appreciation following a specially successful
speech.
* The meeting will continue.
Thus, the psychic agency which approaches the
dream-content with the demand that it must be intelligible, which subjects
it to a first interpretation, and in doing so leads to the complete
misunderstanding of it, is none other than our normal thought. In our
interpretation the rule will be, in every case, to disregard the apparent
coherence of the dream as being of suspicious origin and, whether the
elements are confused or clear, to follow the same regressive path to the
dream-material.
At the same time, we note those factors upon which the
above- mentioned (chapter VI., C) scale of quality in dreams- from
confusion to clearness- is essentially independent. Those parts of the
dream seem to us clear in which the secondary elaboration has been able to
accomplish something; those seem confused where the powers of this
performance have failed. Since the confused parts of the dream are often
likewise those which are less vividly presented, we may conclude that the
secondary dream-work is responsible also for a contribution to the plastic
intensity of the individual dream-structures.
If I seek an object of comparison for the definitive
formation of the dream, as it manifests itself with the assistance of
normal thinking, I can think of none better than those mysterious
inscriptions with which Die Fliegende Blatter has so long amused its
readers. In a certain sentence which, for the sake of contrast, is in
dialect, and whose significance is as scurrilous as possible, the reader
is led to expect a Latin inscription. For this purpose the letters of the
words are taken out of their syllabic groupings, and are rearranged. Here
and there a genuine Latin word results; at other points, on the assumption
that letters have been obliterated by weathering, or omitted, we allow
ourselves to be deluded about the significance of certain isolated and
meaningless letters. If we do not wish to be fooled we must give up
looking for an inscription, must take the letters as they stand, and
combine them, disregarding their arrangement, into words of our mother
tongue.
The secondary elaboration is that factor of the
dream-work which has been observed by most of the writers on dreams, and
whose importance has been duly appreciated. Havelock Ellis gives an
amusing allegorical description of its performances: "As a matter of fact,
we might even imagine the sleeping consciousness as saying to itself:
'Here comes our master, Waking Consciousness, who attaches such mighty
importance to reason and logic and so forth. Quick! gather things up, put
them in order- any order will do- before he enters to take possession.'" *
* The World of Dreams, pp. 10, 11 (London, 1911).
The identity of this mode of operation with that of
waking thought is very clearly stated by Delacroix in his Sur la structure
logique du reve (p. 526): "Cette fonction d'interpretation n'est pas
particuliere au reve; c'est le meme travail de coordination logique que
nous faisons sur nos sensations pendant la veille." *
* This function of interpretation is not particular to
the dream; it is the same work of logical coordination that we use on our
sensations when awake.
J. Sully is of the same opinion; and so is Tobowolska:
"Sur ces successions incoherentes d'hallucinations, l'esprit s'efforce de
faire le meme travail de coordination logique qu'il fait pendant le veille
sur les sensations. Il relie entre elles par un lien imaginaire toutes ces
images decousues et bouche les ecarts trop grands qui se trouvaient entre
elles" * (p. 93).
* With these series of incoherent hallucinations, the
mind must do the same work of logical coordination that it does with the
sensations when awake. With a bon of imagination, it reunites all the
disconnected images, and fills in the gaps found which are too great.
Some authors maintain that this ordering and
interpreting activity begins even in the dream and is continued in the
waking state. Thus Paulhan (p. 547): "Cependant j'ai souvent pense qu'il
pouvait y avoir une certain deformation, ou plutot reformation du reve
dans le souvenir.... La tendence systematisante de l'imagination pourrait
fort bien achever apres le reveil ce qu'elle a ebauche pendant le sommeil.
De la sorte, la rapidite reelle de la pensee serait augmentee en apparence
par les perfectionnements dus a l'imagination eveillee." *
* However, I have often thought that there might be a
certain deformation, or rather reformation, of the dream when it is
recalled.... The systematizing tendency of the imagination can well
finish, after waking, the sketch begun in sleep. In that way, the real
speed of thought will be augmented in appearance by improvements due to
the wakened imagination.
Leroy and Tobowolska (p. 502): "Dans le reve, au
contraire, l'interpretation et la coordination se font non seulement a
l'aide des donnees du reve, mais encore a l'aide de celles de la
veille...." *
* In the dream, on the contrary, the interpretation and
coordination are made not only with the aid of what is given by the dream,
but also with what is given by the wakened mind.
It was therefore inevitable that this one recognized
factor of dream-formation should be over-estimated, so that the whole
process of creating the dream was attributed to it. This creative work was
supposed to be accomplished at the moment of waking, as was assumed by
Goblot, and with deeper conviction by Foucault, who attributed to waking
thought the faculty of creating the dream out of the thoughts which
emerged in sleep.
In respect to this conception, Leroy and Tobowolska
express themselves as follows: "On a cru pouvoir placer le reve au moment
du reveil et ils ont attribue a la pensee de la veille la fonction de
construire le reve avec les images presentes dans la pensee du sommeil." *
* It was thought that the dream could be placed at the
moment of waking, and they attributed to the waking thoughts the function
of constructing the dream from the images present in the sleeping
thoughts.
To this estimate of the secondary elaboration I will
add the one fresh contribution to the dream-work which has been indicated
by the sensitive observations of H. Silberer. Silberer has caught the
transformation of thoughts into images in flagranti, by forcing himself to
accomplish intellectual work while in a state of fatigue and somnolence.
The elaborated thought vanished, and in its place there appeared a vision
which proved to be a substitute for- usually abstract- thoughts. In these
experiments it so happened that the emerging image, which may be regarded
as a dream-element, represented something other than the thoughts which
were waiting for elaboration: namely, the exhaustion itself, the
difficulty or distress involved in this work; that is, the subjective
state and the manner of functioning of the person exerting himself rather
than the object of his exertions. Silberer called this case, which in him
occurred quite often, the functional phenomenon, in contradistinction to
the material phenomenon which he expected.
"For example: one afternoon I am lying, extremely
sleepy, on my sofa, but I nevertheless force myself to consider a
philosophical problem. I endeavor to compare the views of Kant and
Schopenhauer concerning time. Owing to my somnolence I do not succeed in
holding on to both trains of thought, which would have been necessary for
the purposes of comparison. After several vain efforts, I once more exert
all my will-power to formulate for myself the Kantian deduction in order
to apply it to Schopenhauer's statement of the problem. Thereupon, I
directed my attention to the latter, but when I tried to return to Kant, I
found that he had again escaped me, and I tried in vain to fetch him back.
And now this fruitless endeavor to rediscover the Kantian documents
mislaid somewhere in my head suddenly presented itself, my eyes being
closed, as in a dream-image, in the form of a visible, plastic symbol: I
demand information of a grumpy secretary, who, bent over a desk, does not
allow my urgency to disturb him; half straightening himself, he gives me a
look of angry refusal." *
* Jahrb., i, p. 514.
Other examples, which relate to the fluctuation between
sleep and waking:
"Example No. 2. Conditions: Morning, while awaking.
While to a certain extent asleep (crepuscular state), thinking over a
previous dream, in a way repeating and finishing it, I feel myself drawing
nearer to the waking state, yet I wish to remain in the crepuscular state.
.."Scene: I am stepping with one foot over a stream, but I at once pull it
back again and resolve to remain on this side." *
* Jahrb., iii, p. 625.
"Example No. 6. Conditions the same as in Example No. 4
(he wishes to remain in bed a little longer without oversleeping). I wish
to indulge in a little longer sleep. .."Scene: I am saying good-bye to
somebody, and I agree to meet him (or her) again before long."
I will now proceed to summarize this long disquisition
on the dream-work. We were confronted by the question whether in dream-
formation the psyche exerts all its faculties to their full extent,
without inhibition, or only a fraction of them, which are restricted in
their action. Our investigations lead us to reject such a statement of the
problem as wholly inadequate in the circumstances. But if, in our answer,
we are to remain on the ground upon which the question forces us, we must
assent to two conceptions which are apparently opposed and mutually
exclusive. The psychic activity in dream-formation resolves itself into
two achievements: the production of the dream-thoughts and the
transformation of these into the dream-content. The dream- thoughts are
perfectly accurate, and are formed with all the psychic profusion of which
we are capable; they belong to the thoughts which have not become
conscious, from which our conscious thoughts also result by means of a
certain transposition. There is doubtless much in them that is worth
knowing, and also mysterious, but these problems have no particular
relation to our dreams, and cannot claim to be treated under the head of
dream-problems. * On the other hand, we have the process which changes the
unconscious thoughts into the dream- content, which is peculiar to the
dream-life and characteristic of it. Now, this peculiar dream-work is much
farther removed from the pattern of waking thought than has been supposed
by even the most decided depreciators of the psychic activity in dream-
formation. It is not so much that it is more negligent, more incorrect,
more forgetful, more incomplete than waking thought; it is something
altogether different, qualitatively, from waking thought, and cannot
therefore be compared with it. It does not think, calculate, or judge at
all, but limits itself to the work of transformation. It may be
exhaustively described if we do not lose sight of the conditions which its
product must satisfy. This product, the dream, has above all to be
withdrawn from the censorship, and to this end the dream-work makes use of
the displacement of psychic intensities, even to the transvaluation of all
psychic values; thoughts must be exclusively or predominantly reproduced
in the material of visual and acoustic memory-traces, and from this
requirement there proceeds the regard of the dream-work for
representability, which it satisfies by fresh displacements. Greater
intensities have (probably) to be produced than are at the disposal of the
night dream-thoughts, and this purpose is served by the extensive
condensation to which the constituents of the dream-thoughts are
subjected. Little attention is paid to the logical relations of the
thought- material; they ultimately find a veiled representation in the
formal peculiarities of the dream. The affects of the dream- thoughts
undergo slighter alterations than their conceptual content. As a rule,
they are suppressed; where they are preserved, they are freed from the
concepts and combined in accordance with their similarity. Only one part
of the dream-work- the revision, variable in amount, which is effected by
the partially wakened conscious thought- is at all consistent with the
conception which the writers on the subject have endeavored to extend to
the whole performance of dream-formation.
* Formerly I found it extraordinarily difficult to
accustom my readers to the distinction between the manifest dream-content
and the latent dream-thoughts. Over and over again arguments and
objections were adduced from the uninterpreted dream as it was retained in
the memory, and the necessity of interpreting the dream was ignored. But
now, when the analysts have at least become reconciled to substituting for
the manifest dream its meaning as found by interpretation, many of them
are guilty of another mistake, to which they adhere just as stubbornly.
They look for the essence of the dream in this latent content, and thereby
overlook the distinction between latent dream-thoughts and the dream-work.
The dream is fundamentally nothing more than a special form of our
thinking, which is made possible by the conditions of the sleeping state.
It is the dream-work which produces this form, and it alone is the essence
of dreaming- the only explanation of its singularity. I say this in order
to correct the reader's judgment of the notorious prospective tendency of
dreams. That the dream should concern itself with efforts to perform the
tasks with which our psychic life is confronted is no more remarkable than
that our conscious waking life should so concern itself, and I will only
add that this work may be done also in the preconscious, a fact already
familiar to us. |
